pupils who remain in school one or two semesters or less, but take no examinations and receive no semester grades, might reasonably be considered to have failed if they shunned examinations merely to escape the recording of failures, as sometimes appears to be the case when judged from the incomplete grades recorded for only a part of the semester.  A few pupils will elect to ‘skip’ the regular term examination, and then repeat the work of that semester, but no failures are recorded in such instances.  Some teachers, when recording for their own subjects, prefer to indicate a failure by a dash mark or by a blank space until after the subject is satisfied later, and the passing mark is then filled in.  One school indicates failure entirely by a short dash in the space provided, and then at times there occurs the ‘cond’ (conditioned) in pencil, apparently to avoid the classification as a failure by the usual sign.  One finds some instances of a ‘?’ or an ‘inc’ (incomplete) as a substitute for a mark of failure.  Again, where there is no indication of failure recorded, the dates accompanying the grades for the subjects may tell the tale that two semesters were required to complete one semester’s work in a subject.  Some of these situations were easily discernible, and the indisputable failures treated as such in the succeeding tabulations; but in many instances this was not possible, and partial statement of these cases is all that is attempted.

How far these selected schools, their pupils, and the facts relating to them are representative or typical of the schools, the pupils, and the same facts for the states of New Jersey and New York, cannot be definitely known from the information that is now available.  It seems indisputable, however, that the schools concerned in this study are at least among the better schools of these two states.  If we may feel assured that the 6,141 pupils here included are fairly and generally representative of the facts for the eight schools to which they belong and which had an enrollment of 14,620 pupils in 1916; and if we are justified in classing these schools as averaging above the median rank of the schools for these states, then the statistical facts presented in the following pages may seem to be a rather moderate statement regarding the failures of high school pupils for the states referred to.  It must be noted in this connection, however, that it is not unlikely that such schools, with their adequate records, will have the facts concerning failure more certainly recorded than will those whose records are incomplete, neglected, or poorly systematized.